ray mears knife

[grumpy-monkey]

i was just on ebay and came across a woodlore knife ( new )
he wants £495.00 + £6.95 postage .. is it just me or is it getting a bit of a joke when people are willing to pay in exess of £500 for a bushcraft knife

to be honest i wouldnt mind one but when people are willing to pay that there spoiling it for the people who want one for what there made for not to sit in a display case and to show there rich mates what they have just got for a song ...
i also think that ray should limmit his knifes to people whohave been on one of his courses ( give them the first oppertunity to buy 1 ) at least then theres a chance of them been used for what there ment for .....

oh yes im a bit jelouse that i carnt afford one

 

[ArkAngel]

To be honest these days most people are not paying £500 for a bushcraft knife.

They are paying £500 for a future investment due to the fact the WS woodies are no longer available and AW one are years off ordering again. It wouldn't surprise me if Alan stopped producing them period apart from special one offs for Ray's friends, he must be sick to death of making them.

Personnally i don't care....i have my WS woodie and it gets used. If you want a Woodie copy just think about the spec you could get someone to make it for you.

 

[kb31]

ben orford makes a AW RM copy for £165 but he's boged down at the min
he's on the woodsmoke site- top bloke

 

[markheolddu]

think how many Moras you buy for that sort of money.


Mark

 

[Tengu]

You could have the complete kit

 

[Big John]

think how many Moras you buy for that sort of money.


Mark

Quite a few - I just bought 60 Frosts clippers for £300!

(for distribution to the Explorer Scouts in our District in case you're wondering!!)

 

[Aaron]

think how many Moras you buy for that sort of money.


Mark

Honestly mate, I think that you're better off with your Mora. I have one of the Micarta handled Woodlore knives which I bought for £80 on a woodlore course - the whole point of them was that they were an affordable alternative to the Alan Wood-made knives - this recent price speculation by people on evil-bay has got stupid . Anyway, I digress. I use mine as a working knife and often find that it is too thick for fine carving work, a good example is when carving the notch on a bow-drill hearth. The Mora is much more suitable for such work.

 

[Doc]

The Mora is very good and spending extra money on a knife may get you something prettier, but for actual use any extra benefits are marginal.

In the UK, I think its best to spend more on decent waterproofs, a decent sleeping bag and a decent tarp/tent.

 

[themac]

£500 or so for an AW woodie is bonkers in my book, you can get a custom knife made from a variety of makers for far less.

 

[spamel]

The whole thing makes me mad, these people are buying the knives just to sell them on and make a profit. They are what is making the waiting list longer, threfore making the sell on ebay for a massive profit thingy occur and so it goes on constantly perpetuating itself in a vicious circle of greed!

I'd like to shove these knives in to the greedy bar stewards eyes whilst making them read the excessively long waiting list they have created with their selfishness and....Aaaaaaargh!!! :aargh4: :aargh4:



:sad6:

 

[dwardo]

I have a genuine 1ft by 1ft bit of turf that was once stood on by RAY MEERS

Do i hear £100 pounds any one ? you can still see his boot print on it ?

Bargain i tell ya

 

[HAM]

I agree with the sentiment that the prices quoted are ridiculous. I have had an Alan Wood Woodore for many years and it is and always will be my main knife. I paid £140 for mine on a Woodlore course, but if you asked me is it 14 times better than a Mora at a tenner, I'd have to say no, not a chance. I guess people forget that having a top class knife doesn't make you a top class knife user. Yes, it impresses your mates and makes them envious. But then I'm much more envious of some of you guys based on the work I've seen you produce. I'd swap you my Woodlore for your talent anyday.

Skill with a knife costs nothing but care, time and patience. Who cares what tool you use to make these items. If we all spread that sentiment, there wouldn't be any £500 knives.

 

[Spikey DaPikey]

Im sticking with my Mora, as it was a gift to me, and a damn fine blade

 

[Stutoffee]

I use a variety of different blades from the good old Mora, through a Marine Kabar up to a Becker BK7 (and sometimes a SRKW SwampRat, but thats abit big really!). I think the SwampRat was the priciest at about £100 including shipping from the States & I would say any or all of them are just as good as the fabled Woodlore knife. £500 for a knife just coz its what Ray Mears uses is just barmy!! Im sure its a fine blade, but 500 QUID!!!
If spending that much (I never would, though!) Id want some over-engineered, super-dooper piece from Chris Reeve, Robert Parrish or Jack Crain.

 

[spamel]

If I was spending five hundred smackers for a knife, I'd expect it to brew up and carve by itself!!

 

[Ralph]

After using a mora for 2 years and liking it for about 23 months of the time ( approximately, of course) I decided it was time to get a new knife. In my opinion if you want a woodlore style knife you could do many times worse than the SWC bushcrafter. Having tried using a woodlore I actually prefer this knife, and you can get yer own name on it, not the name of some bloke off the telly who'll you are very unlikely to meet.

 

[demographic]

The whole thing makes me mad, these people are buying the knives just to sell them on and make a profit. They are what is making the waiting list longer, threfore making the sell on ebay for a massive profit thingy occur and so it goes on constantly perpetuating itself in a vicious circle of greed!

I'd like to shove these knives in to the greedy bar stewards eyes whilst making them read the excessively long waiting list they have created with their selfishness and....Aaaaaaargh!!! :aargh4: :aargh4:



:sad6:

I don't see the problem myself
As long as theres people daft/obsessive enough to pay those prices it will continue, if I knew how much they would go up in price I would have bought a batch myself to make some money.

It's not as if they are THE ONLY knives that can be used when out and about so why don't people buy something else?

Most people do exactly that and find that the world doesn't come to an end unless they own a *Ray Mears Bushcraft knife* and that only leaves the really obsessives to waste their money on something that's now so expensive to buy they hardly get any enjoyment out of owning it for fear of scratching their £300-£500 knife.
There are loads of makers out there making perfectly servicable (and nice looking) knives that don't cost huge sums of money.
What can you do with one of those that you can't do with a Mora?
If anyone waffles on about "battoning" I would like to point out that "hack knives" cost about 4 quid from Axminster

I recently bought a knife off Dave Barker, didn't cost the earth and what a lovely knife, big enough handle but not a huge numb blade..
Great and sure as hell didn't cost 500 quid.

I just have a laugh about the prices and bear in mind the fact that every time someone does a search on Google to find out how much something is worth they turn up threads like this one here, in fact these threads are to some extent perpetuating the hich prices

Anyway how do people find all these knives to be outraged by the prices?
I would be willing to bet the search parameters look something like this...

*Ray Mears Bushcraft knife*

For anyone that really is bothered by these prices its dead easy to stop, just don't key *Ray Mears Bushcraft knife* into Ebay

regards Scott.


















I wonder if I could get hold of a few direct from the maker to bung on Ebay as I could do with some more cash

 

[spamel]

It's not the price that bothers me, it is the fact that people are ordering the knives with a view to make money, and therefore they are creating a huge backlog of knives to be made. Therefore, if you wanted one and went through the maker you will get put on a huge waiting list, made all the more bigger because these people are ordering them just to make a fast buck.

 

[jamie6754]

£500 knife people must be mad. These greedy money making people who dont even want the knife,let alone use it for bushcrafting all they want is to make a profit and quite a large one at that.

There are alot of good custom made knifes on the market that are alot cheaper and just as good, Bear claw field knife for example or personally i would just stick with my trusty mora knife, it hasnt let me down yet.

 

[demographic]

It's not the price that bothers me, it is the fact that people are ordering the knives with a view to make money, and therefore they are creating a huge backlog of knives to be made. Therefore, if you wanted one and went through the maker you will get put on a huge waiting list, made all the more bigger because these people are ordering them just to make a fast buck.

Indeed, your'e right.
All the more reason to buy from another maker then.

There is still an end user though (althought the term "user" may be a slight misnomer in the case of someone spending 500 quid on a knife) and as long as theres people paying these prices it will continue.

People will continue to pay those prices as long as they can hit Google and see threads like this that say the knives are selling for huge sums of money.

The only thing that baffles be is that the maker doesn't seem to have made a massive price hike as anyone that is so completley snowed under with work usually puts the prices up till the work slows down slightly, that way he knows that he is getting the most money for his labour.
You don't go to work for £10 an hour when you could do exactly the same job in the same workshop for £20 do you?
Not unless you need your bumps read anyway.
Market forces and all that guff.